How to Manage Your Time for Ultimate Success with Angela Proffitt
Angela Proffitt is an award-winning eight figure entrepreneur and CEO of GSD Creative. She is no stranger to the spotlight and is currently the host of the Business Unveiled podcast. As a consultant with several books as well as an in-demand speaker, Angela has appeared on ABC, CMT, TLC, E! as well as other national networks. With a degree in psychology and proven expertise in productivity strategies that scale your business, her work has been featured in publications such as INC, Success, US Weekly & People magazine. When she is not speaking, writing, or creating content, Angela can be found working with other CEO’s, Executives, Entrepreneurs and/or Solopreneurs to implement and master processes that can turn any business, into a profitable business.
Show Notes
Products/software mentioned:
SaneBox: https://www.sanebox.com/
Agora Pulse: https://www.agorapulse.com/
Marco Polo: https://www.marcopolo.me/
Loom: https://www.loom.com/
Links:
Watch Angela's Free Video Course 4 Days to Better Productivity when you sign up to receive my productivity updates via email. Click that button below! https://theprofitableshift.com/#LB-npiuYvUJpAY239HWJFW4v9
Visit Angela's website: https://theprofitableshift.com/
Connect with Angela on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngelaProffittLLC
Follow Angela on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelaproffitt/
Watch Angela on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwdB7cvwDh9BKAmDSzc_RYQ?sub_confirmation=1
Episode Transcript:
Lindsay (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. We have Angela Proffitt with us today. She is an award-winning eight-figure entrepreneur and CEO of GSD creative. She's no stranger to the spotlight and is currently the host of the Business Unveiled podcast. Make sure you have a pen and paper because she is sharing a ton of golden nuggets. And of course, sit back, relax and enjoy.
All right, everyone. We have Angela Proffitt with us today. Super excited because I was on her show. It was amazing and I'm so grateful we get to chat again. She's going to blow your mind cause I know a lot of you are struggling with time management, how to get everything done, not only in your business, but just in the 24 hours that we have. Sometimes it feels like it's not enough. So it's great to have the expert in here. Angela, thank you so much for being on the Book Your Dream Clients podcast.
Angela (01:21):
So excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Lindsay (01:24):
Yes. And in case anyone hasn't heard of you yet, would you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do?
Angela (01:32):
Absolutely. I started off my journey as an entrepreneur because my family had a venue for about 35 years in the wedding events industry. And I grew up around it, but that's not what I thought I was going to do forever. I went to school to be a psychologist and I loved people. I love helping people. And I worked in mental health. I worked at a morgue. I worked at an AIDS clinic. I did physician recruiting, but the whole time I was working in healthcare, I was planning. And at the time they would say like decorating, I didn't even have the internet at home back then. And social media did not exist. So it was, well, it goes about two, two decades ago. And so I started just doing it for fun. Didn't realize that I had such a passion and natural passion for it and just helping people in planning.
And I did both for about a decade and then something had to give because I was living like this double life. I would go and work in healthcare. And then most of my clients would want to meet at night and then on the weekends. And it was like a seven day a week and working 20 hour days, which is not healthy ladies at all. And so I started to get a mentor through score who started to teach me about business because again, that's not what I went to school for. And I actually hired an accountant and ended up getting a business manager. And about the 10th year we did over 250 events and I'd hired these people to help me. And they told me I wasn't profitable because I didn't know my numbers. I didn't know how to charge. I didn't know any of that stuff.
And so after I graduated through score, which was a completely free business program, I went and did a catalyst program and the entrepreneurs organization, and really started to find my people. And when I say my people, I mean like entrepreneurs and they started to help me put structures and systems. And we already had great systems in place in terms of being paperless. I was on the early end of EMR electronical medical records for healthcare. And I saw how powerful it was and kind of like a security safe zone that everything was in the cloud. But again, it was still kind of new. I mean, still to this day, here we are another decade later and people love their paper. I get it. I love my paper when I draw and design. But ultimately at the end of the day, making sure that all of your stuff is safe is really important.
So in 2010, the town that I live in Nashville, Tennessee, our town flooded, and a lot of my vendors lost everything. And so it really was sad that they waited for a tragedy to actually start to put their business in front of clients, working on their business, not in the business and so for free because they have asked me, okay, what's this cloud thing. Why are you so productive? And I had a mentor that forced me to track my time and color-code my calendar. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. I have to be here for these people 24/7 because that's just what they need. And he's like, no, you don't understand. This is running you. You're not running your business. Yeah. That wasn't charging appropriately. So there was a lot of stuff that blew up in 2010, 2011, which I'm very thankful for because it completely turned my life around professionally, personally, my bank account, the people that I chose to work with, surround myself with.
And so by really leveraging what my mentors were teaching me and understanding how to block time, how to work on my calendar, we were able over the next two years to go from 250 to 30 events and we had the most profitable year ever. It wasn't easy. But then, but then I found myself running an events company, a productivity company that I've been involved in a few other ventures, like a coworking space. And I'm part of several online businesses as well. Cause I got into the e-commerce space. And so really what I've learned over all these years, as you listen to your audience and you learn how to communicate, you learn how to outsource and delegate. And again, it doesn't happen overnight, but it really is amazing that you know, when you're having fun, you blink your eyes, time flies when you're having fun, even if you're not, you're being challenged. And you're, you're trying to pivot to figure out new things. If you have a foundation for your business and for how to really protect your time, you have the right people in place, you've got the processes and the profit comes if you know your numbers. And so that's been my whole thing for many, many years is trying to help people really turn out, turn away the distractions so they can be present in everyday life. So they're not running around like a chicken with their head cut off like I did for 10 years. It's exhausting.
Lindsay (06:34):
Absolutely. And I think so many of the coaches that I know are in the rock bottom stage where, they know they need to do all this stuff. They're like looking up from this hole of everything that they need to do to build the foundation of their business. And then they have, you know, their kids are at home. They're probably working a full-time job too. And they're wondering how in the world do I even climb out of this and then stay afloat. So what can you say to that coach?
Angela (07:03):
Well, again, the first thing is, is you have to get a really good handle on how you want to work and what do you want? And especially as women, we get at least myself, I would get happiness based off of making other people happy as well. I always wanted to say, yes, I'll always want it to be there, but it was not the best thing for me. And so my mother kept saying if you don't take care of yourself first, why do you think you can take care of a bunch of people's stuff? And to me I'm like, it's just easier. I don't like business. It's not fun to run a business. I don't care about the numbers, the money's in the bank, but I was looking at it from a, in my opinion, the wrong mindset. And so you really have to get the right mindset down where, and I like to be funny because everyone can relate to potty training.
Even if you don't have kids, probably have a dog or a cat or some type of an animal or nieces or nephews, but I call it potty, train your brain. And so you have to set boundaries for yourself first, and then you have to start communicating what you want to these clients. And I thought, when at a coach teaching me all this, I'm like, no, I'm going to lose all my clients. You don't understand they need me, but the opposite happened when I actually, and, and he helped me like put together a new contract and taught me how to Tom block and how to charge for my time. And it really sucks sometimes, especially for coaches and consultants, when you're trading your time for money, when there's only so much time in the day. So what else can you be working on to build some type of residual income?
And so I found with a lot of coaches that they try to do too much in too little time. It's like, you know, what are your goals? Well, I want to do this and this and this and this and this, but take care of a bunch of clients. So making sure that you have an obtainable goal and, you know, perhaps maybe one for the whole year and then a smaller goal for the quarter for yourself, and then make sure you put that time on your calendar, make sure you show up for yourself just as though you are your own client, you would never set up a client and not show up or not perform or, or not finish the project. So why would you do it to yourself? And so make sure that you try to take time. And when I say try, I mean really put it on your calendar.
And so we've gotten to be able to do it. There's two things we do one day a month and typically it's on a weekend and it might be on a Sunday. We spend one hour or one day a month curating all of our content based around all the questions that our clients and students are asking. And so that's how we curate our content. You know, I'll do a video or podcast and then my team will take it, transcribe it and wash, rinse, repeat it across 10 or so platforms. So you only have to say at once, and that's one thing that over the years, if you really commit to doing that, and then also having a process, don't create content, just create content you know, sitting down and actually planning it out, which for some of us is, is really difficult. It's like, I just take whatever comes my way, but really sitting down and kind of manifesting like, okay, I want three new clients this quarter, and this is at what level I want.
And it's amazing when you say things out loud, even if it's you and your whiteboard. It's okay. I mean, that's for seven years, I worked for myself. That's how it was. And I had a full-time job. It's a, Oh, I don't have time to do that. I'm like no excuses when you want it bad enough, you will surround yourself with the people that will help support you, get to where you want to go. And so making sure that you have that time to work on the business, not in the business is just as important as you showing up for clients every day.
I'm trying to think of what to say. And it's like, if you didn't push your vehicle, it wouldn't go anywhere in your business, it wouldn't go anywhere. There are so many red flags running your business. That way you might not feel well one day or your kids might not feel well, or maybe you just don't want to work, but you have to because you didn't do anything, prepare yourself. If you're not getting clients, unless you push everything manually yourself. And I don't want you to run your business that way anymore. That is not sustainable. And it breaks my heart to see, you know, busy moms, they're raising their babies and they're working or they're stay at home and they're working their tails off trying to get their business going. And they are trying so hard. They don't even see that this can actually be really easy if we just set up the foundation and give the right directions to people.
Lindsay (11:05):
I think one of the most important things that Angela said was how do you want your day to look like? And I think the biggest problem is people listen to me or Angela. And then they think, okay, well I need to make my day just like hers because it's working for her. And then once again, it just doesn't work that way. Do you find, you see that a lot people try to emulate others daily lives and then they find that it's still clunky for them?
Angela (11:32):
Usually any. And we have a whole like time management to get done. And so most of the people that go through the program, we share and give a lot of templates. And so when you really follow the process, now, listen, life is going to happen. Especially if you're a mom and you're at home, you're gonna have distractions. You're gonna have to be flexible. But if you start your day and which we do, we do it now. I feel like we do it every month. Like we're booked about a month out to do things because I am creating and putting pockets of time in my schedule every time a client books us, or if we're speaking or doing a podcast, we do it almost for the whole year. We go ahead and block our, our dates and our times in advance. So I don't really feel that people, once you get on the mindset, train of like, okay, I'm going to be in control of my schedule in terms of clients.
Again, life happens. If you don't allow the fires and the distractions that are not needed to be put out right now, you can really get a lot more done. We don't have too many people that are just like, Oh my God, I just can't do it because we're supporting people the whole time. And but again, you have to communicate to people what you want. And so by saying to clients, when, when they come in and, and say, Hey you know, how do you work? And it's like, Oh, you just call me whenever you need something or email me. No, it's like, we were very upfront. And typically if people follow the process, they can follow about 80% of it. You know, it's an 80/20 rule, which it is for me. You know, I don't have my own kids, but I help care for my nieces and nephew.
And there's a lot of school things. And I mean, I've had to homeschool them two days a week and ask for help, which is hard for women. You know, didn't ask for help and put them on a schedule. Just like I am forcing myself to be on some type of a schedule because the results are much greater and you feel so much more accomplished if you can actually, time block follow those blocks and don't allow the distractions. And, and when I say distractions, I mean like all the dings of all the emails coming in and checking your notifications because of social media and, you know, time block for those things. And it does take discipline. If, if you don't have any discipline, it's a little bit harder for people. I've found is if you're coaching someone or if you are really running a business, like, you know, you need discipline, but you need to surround yourself with the people that can help hold you accountable. As long as someone's holding you accountable. I find that people if you show them what to do and you give them the tools and you support them along the way, the outcome is, is pretty much the same. People can really do it. If they want to do it bad enough, they really can.
Lindsay (14:47):
I think setting boundaries for your clients teaches them how to do it for if you, you know, if I work with coaches and I'm there for them every second of the day, then that is going to make them feel like they need to do that with their clients. And then you're just turning or turning over people who are going to just be exhausted all of the time. And I didn't do that at the beginning either. I think a lot of us are just so excited to help clients and they want to be there for them for every ring and ding and bang that comes up. But really setting boundaries, just like with kids, I have three kids. So, you know, when they come to me and they say, I want a drink, I want a snack. Oh, you have to hold on a minute because I'm doing this right now. And then produce in your kids, start to learn like, okay, she's doing this. This is when we ask this because then we'll get a bigger return. And then you have to do that with their clients because otherwise you're on the road to absolute burnout. But I think it goes all down to time management and honoring it and making it, this is mine. And if I don't claim it, somebody else is going to, and then your business is just going to feel like it's suffocating you.
Angela (15:56):
Yep. And it's a real problem. It really is. It. And I don't even like to say the word problem, but I'm like, if you don't find a solution if you don't find a way or someone like yourself, who's coaching and holding you accountable and making sure that you are doing the things you need to be doing, then I see a lot of people burn out and they literally give up and they quit. And it hurts my heart because I'm like, you're so talented. You can help so many people, but you've got to help yourself. Then people. You've got to help yourself first.
Lindsay (16:27):
Yeah. You got to put the oxygen mask on yourself in order to help others. Yeah. What are your favorite time and management productivity tools?
Angela (16:38):
Oh my gosh. Like there's so many, but
Lindsay (16:41):
Such a fun conversation for nerds. Right?
Angela (16:45):
Well, and like, I love software and I love technology. But for somebody who, and even it's funny because the younger generation, I'm very involved with the entrepreneur center and, you know, someone will say, Oh, I'm a brand new entrepreneur. You could be talking to a 20 year old and you could be talking to a 67 year old, which happened recently. And so when I say young entrepreneur, it doesn't mean, you know, I think people think, Oh, 18, 19, 20 years old. Well, yes. Sometimes, but not always. There's some people that they work their whole life in the military and they retire after 25 years and they have this great idea and they want to do something. And so there's a couple of tools because the first thing to know, and you know, this, you can't do this alone if you're going to really grow.
And so even if you are a small company and it's just you and your dog is your mascot. That's fine. I did that for literally seven years when people are like, Oh my God, I can't do this. I'm like, yes, you can. But the best thing that I did first to really be productive with your time is I started an intern program and partnered with some of the colleges in my area. And I started to use a psychology tool. I use two colors, there's StrengthFinders, Meyers-Briggs culture, all kinds out there. Then I started to make sure that I understood how the brain was wired. And I started to find the right types of people to do the things that I was not good at doing, and I didn't want to do it. So that's the first step is learning how to delegate and outsource and listen, I've been there and I am a control freak because I want things done perfectly, but you can't do it on your own.
And so finding your people to help you, and it can, it can start really small. But for example, if you start to block time on your calendar and we just use the Apple calendar, ICal we also use Google calendar. We share calendars with various vendors and, and some of our larger clients that we handle their entire brand and the internal communication and the outbound social media. So making sure that you have an internal process for yourself and then help those people basically shadow you and sit right next to you so they can see how you do things. So this is the first thing you gotta, you gotta get a few people if you're not quite there yet, again, calendar block. The next thing is we, I would say the most effective and efficient apps is because we Tom block and we tell our clients, you know, we don't live on email all day long.
In fact, I really hate email. And so that's the first thing that I hired someone to do is to outsource the email, to a type, a person who is accountable, who liked repetition. My brain is not wired like that. I would rather be doing sales and speaking, and relationship building. And she's great. Just handling the communication, the calendar and the emails. And so making sure that you have some type of a tool to really make sure that your inbox is not flooded with trash. So there's a, there's an app called SaneBox and it, it basically, it's like email makes you go insane. And so they're same reminders, same later, same black hole. And so you can start to train your email so that like, and also too, we have different email addresses for different things. So our clients get one email every once in a while somebody gets ahold of that and, you know, junk started.
I don't want to say junk. I have a lot of friends with like daily newsletters and affirmations and coupons. And I do want those things, but I don't want them every day. And so I train those emails to go to sane later, which means on Sundays, I'll get through it, I'll clean it out. And then the best is same black hole because you drag emails, same black hole. And if you unsubscribe from an email, they know you're a real person, and there's slimy companies out there that sell your data and your information, and then you get more spam. So dragging things, the same black hole, you never have to see it. And then if you don't have a team, you don't have assistance and you don't yet have a project management system. Sane reminders is great because you can drag it to that folder, give it a date, and then it'll pop back up in your email.
So that's one tool that we use. The other thing that I would say, and this is just every year, it changes, but this day and time right now, a lot of leads come from social media, from DMS, for messages. I mean, we're, you know, you get them from Instagram, Pinterest, Tik ToK, Facebook. I mean, no, you get them from YouTube because YouTube videos. And so having a dashboard where all your messages can go into one place is probably the next thing that I would invest in. So your, that you're not going to have a bunch of different tabs open to all these different areas, trying to keep up and also block the time. Like we block our time to where, like, I just read an email a day, cause I get a daily bullet from my assistant who handles all that. But again, if you're just doing this alone right now, block the time on your email, maybe it's an hour in the morning, an hour in the evening or 30 minutes or whatever, but you shouldn't be spending more than two hours on email.
Like you just shouldn't shoot it. I used to be an email jail. And then, and then you know, making sure that you can have some type of dashboard to pull off all of your messages. We used to use hootsuite, which was great for a little bit. And we started investing more time and actually started to really understand, okay, most of these people, they don't want to go on our website anymore and they don't want to fill out a form. You know, some people still do that and what I prefer, but what you want and what other people want. You have to learn how to service your, your leads best. So we use something called Agorapulse and, and there's multiple platforms out there, but it aggregates everything together. So you're just going to one area. And so taking an hour or 90 minutes a day, again, blocking that time to go through all those posts and to go through all the comments and to go through all the leads.
I didn't use to do that. And we were seeing a lot of opportunity and a lot of potential clients on the table. So you've got to understand where's your audience living online and you got to hang out there every day. You gotta be consistent. So that's the next thing. And then the repeat, what that was called again, it's called Agora pulse. It's like, keep a pulse, check your social media. And I mean, again, I'm a little bit of a data nerd and I have a business partner in another venture, and she's like, you pay for so much, you have so much software. I'm like, but this is how I look at it. You know, if I'm paying, let's say $200 a month for five or so platforms, I think SaneBox is like 50 or 60 bucks a year.
A girl pulls, I pay a monthly, you can pay up front for the year. Right. But I would say, try it out. Like, don't just dive in unless you know, like you do a demo and you know, but here's my thing. Your time is the most precious asset you have. You can never buy it back. And so the way I look at it is okay, if I'm paying X amount of dollars in software and I'm charging X amount of dollars for my time, then I can get a lot more done. If I'm being more productive using the software, if I don't have it. And even when you start hiring people, I want them to be productive and efficient because if they're not being productive, I'm paying them good, you know, harder and money. And that's not going to do the business any favors either. Right.
And obviously it's a write off. And then the next thing is really, again, going back to setting boundaries. And so whenever we take on a client, we block that they purchased 20 hour time blocks. And some people, they just need two day strategy. And that's it. So that we, within two days, we have to do prep work. And so that's a 20 hour thing. Some people need it where they're like, okay, every month for the next three months, which is really where the results and the outcomes get, they start to happen. So where change starts to happen, you need at least 90 days, we really help them dig in. But when someone comes to us, we say, okay, get out your calendar. We can always move and be flexible, but let's go ahead and start to roadmap this out of what the journey is going to look like with your time and my time.
So you always know when we're going to get together, people really are like, Oh, okay. So I know what I'm going to see you. And I'm like, yep. And guess what? When I'm with you, I am with you 100%. I'm not multitasking. I'm not thinking about anything else. And so when I'm not with you, I'm doing that with other people. And I would love for you to think you're my only client, but I want you to know that when I'm with you, you are my only client. So I don't answer my phone randomly. I'm not, I don't live on email and social media all the time. Now, if there's an emergency, you can definitely text or reach out to my assistant. Who knows where I am at all times. But nine times out of 10, she can handle it. It doesn't even need to get to me, but if somebody is having some type of an emotional problem, and this happens a lot, especially with women we allow our emotions to drive our decisions.
And so what I've done is we use an app called Marco Polo, which is a video texting app. They have a free version and a paid version, and the free version is fine. The paid version, you can like speed people at talking. So it's like, I've paid the 60 bucks a year. So I can like make people go a little bit faster. And then you can also you know, if someone sends me a five minute Marco Polo, I can record my thoughts in between them talking to me. So I love that. I don't have to go back, watch the dancing notes. And so by opening up that first off, when people see your face, they know exactly how you feel, what you're saying or texting email gets a little bit it's like, Oh my God, what are they talking about? Like, we'll get their feelings hurt sometimes.
And, and I'm a pretty straightforward person. And I might say it with a laugh or a smile, but you can't see that over email and text. So by allowing our clients. And then also really my team members, how to use Marco Polo to clarify what needs to be done or how to, and a lot of coaches use it. They have an app called channels. And so as a coach, you can get on there and teach, you know, I do it once a week and then the students get on there and they make a video of their questions. And then every Wednesday I get on and I get back to them. So having that personable touch where people can see your face is really important and also helps people get more, more comfortable seeing themselves talking with the camera. You just, you just, you got to get over it. It's not about you. It's about the information and the knowledge that you have to share with others. And then the other tool that we use is Loom and it's free up until a certain amount of videos and space, just like everything. It's like, Oh, that's free. And then you've hit your threshold. Okay.
But again, best money ever, because a lot of our clients, they're trying to learn productivity. They need to see my screen. They need to see how things are set up, or I haven't done a great job in explaining every single thing I'm good at like leaving some of the things out. Sometimes I don't mean to, it's just, I'm going so fast. So we will make a folder for each client and put all their Loom videos there. So they always can go back and reference that video. The other thing I've learned with that is keep it short. I used to make these hour long videos and I'm like, you can do this and you should do this and this and this and this, then people can't find exactly what they need. So keeping the videos really short and then naming them appropriately and creating this library for your clients has really, really helped.
So I would say from a productivity perspective, like those are some of our favorite apps that we use. And then obviously, you know, we use Dropbox, we use Google drive and there's a few other softwares and I have all those apps on my phone. So prior to that, that, that COVID year. I was traveling more than I was in town where I'm from. And so I would spend six to eight hours on my phone, but I was working and I learned how to work for my apps. And so that's the other thing is like, if you're working from a desktop and a laptop and an iPad and an iPhone or whatever, your, your gadgets are, make sure that you have all the apps installed so that you're actually maximizing your time across each device so that when you need something, it's there at your fingertips. That's the beauty of the cloud.
Lindsay (29:48):
One thing that I recommend is to, I think having the productivity apps on your phone is great, but I took Facebook off of my phone and I took email off my phone and it was the best thing I ever did.
Angela (30:00):
Yep. That's super smart.
Linsday (30:04):
Okay. Angela, this was amazing to talk to you. I love talking all about productivity and I love hearing how other people do it too. Cause it always sparks new ideas and inspiration on how you can improve your day. Cause I think when we're not filling our cup and if we are taking care of all of these people all day long, I would love to know how do you make yourself your best self every day? Like what's your routine? What's your Angela time?
Angela (30:30):
Yeah. So it's funny because I used to not, I was like, Oh, I don't really need to retain. I'm just going to get up and do what my calendar says. And that is not the thing to do. And so for me, I get up every morning and I'm not like a super early morning person to jump into work. I really, and again, after you've been doing this for so many years, depending on where you are in your journey, I would tell my younger self, get eight hours of sleep and go to the gym every morning. Like, don't wait till the night, which I taught gymnastics. And I used to teach aerobics and most of our classes were at night. And my mindset was just, how would I work out in the morning? And like, I just don't understand. But a couple of years ago, like I got a trainer and I, or an accountability partner, if you don't have a trainer and that holds you accountable.
And you know, I, I get up, I go to the gym every morning and it's not like it has to be like this hard run every single day, but it really does get your juices flowing. And so, and I'm not a coffee person. And so I make sure I, and people think I'm crazy, but you know, I'll get up and like literally drink a half a gallon of water every morning. And it just starts to cleanse everything out and you get a good sweat going and then, you know, obviously take a shower and then I'll start my day around 9-9:30. Like I don't start my day 7, 8 o'clock like I used to, because that morning time needs to be my time to get started. And that really sets the foundation. The other thing that I did, and again, this is all related to 2020.
I didn't used to do this cause I used to travel all the time. But the whole year I got a standup treadmill desk. And so I really committed. I'm like, okay, you, you hear 10,000 steps, 10,000 steps. You hear that from every angle you look, but it makes such a difference. And so instead of going to my desk and sitting for eight hours on zoom, or, and we've been using zoom for about five years because we have clients all over the world and, and mixing it up a little bit. And so I'll go sit at my big computer where I'm working on editing projects and design projects where I really need that big screen, but no more than two hours. And then I'll shift and I'll go to my laptop and a screen that is at my standup desk. And even if you walk like, I mean, the treadmill goes like two miles per hour.
It doesn't go, you can't like go bust out a run. Right. I mean, I love it because I'm so short, I've really short legs. So, and if I'm working at the same time, I'll walk at like one mile per hour, but after I've done a few zooms or a few calls or whatever I'm doing, I'm checking messages, I've gotten my 10,000 steps in and that's every day. It just helps me keep things a little bit more interesting because if you sit for eight hours and you don't give yourself breaks, that is so bad on your back. Like, Oh my gosh, yes. And so I have two dogs, and so, you know, every three hours or so, you know, they're pawing at me like, mommy, I need to pee. So taking little breaks throughout the day to give your mind like a mental break is really needed.
I can still focus. But really in, in that year, it was just going back and forth from like my kitchen to my real desk to desk. But again, like blocking the day. And then the other thing is I love spending a day with a client and usually it's on zoom now, I'm doing strategy days. And so I'll set the computer up and we had the big whiteboard and we've got, you know, all the color-coded markers and stuff, and really dive in and be a hundred percent on board with helping them pick apart, which with us, we have a four-step process. It's like, make sure you have the right people. And you're communicating with your people, make sure you have the processes. Typically we're teaching people how to do paperless processes and it doesn't happen overnight. And then we're talking about the productivity piece with implementing software and helping them.
A lot of our clients already have a CRM, but it's not set up appropriately with automation and it doesn't have to be fancy, but this is where templates come in, which is another huge productivity thing. If you're emailing the same thing or saying the same thing more than five times, it needs to be a blog on your website. There needs to be some type of a video, and there needs to be some type of a customer journey sales pipeline that can be automated to where it's not taking up your time every single day. You would be shocked at some of the large companies where no one has ever charted that out for them. And they've never appropriately built it out for them. And so that's something that we identify.
And a lot of people, they have people they like. And so they have a lot of blind spots. And so we help go in and uncover those blind spots. And not that we get through it in one day, a lot of people will take them through a two day journey and then identify those things. And some people have a team that we, we train them and teach them. But when the pandemic happened, you know, back in 2020 some people needed help implementing, and that's not a service line that I'll offer, nor did I ever want to offer it. But you know what we hired, we hired VAs in the Philippines and started to train them and teach them so that we can support the brands until they could get back up on their feet and bring their team members back and get things going.
You're always going to have a challenge. This is never going to be perfect. And if you're coasting and you're just on autopilot, which is what I was, you know, a year or so ago, you really need to be pushed to grow, and you've got to listen to your audience. And so if they keep asking you for something, but you're not offering it, you know, consider offering it, not that you have to put it on your plate, but finding the right people and coming up with some type of a training system to make sure that they're following a process is really, really important. And so that's something that, that we're really big on is teaching people again, how to communicate the communication is the foundation of everything. And when, when emotions are heightened, when stress, a lot of stress, is there, people misunderstand each other a lot.
So that's where I'm like, just schedule a phone call. Like I don't like to randomly pick up the phone with people because I want to be prepared. And I want to like, have all my stuff in front of me. And like, I expect it from the other side too. So when, when I explain it to people like that, they're like, Oh, I mean, even my family, like my brother and my mom, they, the kids they'll text me and be like, Hey, I want to talk about this. When, when can you talk? Cause they know I'm not gonna answer my phone. It's typically, it's not even next to me. Or they know if they have like some type of an emergency, they can tell Amanda, and then she can text me. It's like having one person that you can rely on and trust, but then also teaching them how to be productive is really important as well. So it all goes back to people in communication.
Lindsay (37:52):
It really does. There's so many golden nuggets in there. I hope you guys are all taking notes because you'll probably would just want to listen to this episode again, Angela, you were absolutely generous with everything that you shared, where can people find you?
Angela (38:06):
Yeah. You can go to Angelaproffitt.com. And I do have a free video course. It's a four day video course. If your audience is interested. Yeah. You can get a GSD which stands for get shit done. So GSEsecrets.com. And I walk people through a four-day process with video sharing some different techniques, nuggets, and things that you can do to actually really start to set yourself up for the most productive self that you would want to be.
Lindsay (38:44):
Wow. I can't wait to share that. We'll put that link in the show notes. You guys go and watch that. I'm sure it's going to change your business life. If this episode hasn't done so already. Angela, thank you so much for being with us. It was so good to talk to you again, and I want you guys to go and share your love for her on social media, where can they find you?
Angela (39:04):
We're in all the places, all in our annual profit, I'd probably spend most of my time on Instagram and Tik ToK.
Lindsay (39:11):
Can I talk? No, thank you too extroverted for me.
Angela (39:17):
It's funny because before the pandemic, I thought it was like a kid's dance app and I would start to like barter with my nieces. I'm like, listen, if you work for three hours, then we'll do three takes out dancers. And then I started to understand the business model of it. And a lot, a lot of love and investment has gone into the whole learn on Tik Tok. And so it's become like a small teaching platform for me. And so you know, most of the time is on Instagram and then Tik Tok. And then also there's a newer audio app called clubhouse that we spend some time on and, and in the different chat rooms, it's kind of like audio for Snapchat. And like you either join the room and you listen, and once it's gone, it's gone. And there's a lot of people in there that you would never think that you would have access to that or that they're just sharing information on, on their entrepreneurial journey. And so me being an app queen, like I love to go on there and like get into the technology rooms. But again, I like to put it on my calendar because if you allow yourself the distractions of Tik Tok, Instagram, clubhouse, you know, all these different platforms you can really go down a rabbit hole. And so really making sure that you have the appropriate time to do it. But I would say, you know, we're, we're mainly on Instagram, under Angela Proffitt.
Lindsay (40:40):
Awesome. You guys make sure you go and follow her, tell her how much you love the episode. And Angela, thank you so much for being on such a pleasure. And I can't wait for everyone to hear this. Thank you.
Angela (40:50):
Thank you so much for having me, Lindsay. This is great.
Lindsay (40:57):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Book Your Dream Clients podcast. I am so grateful for you, and I want to be sure you are a part of my free community. Go to dreamclientcommunity.com and join our free Facebook group. We have all kinds of cool things happening every single day. So don't miss out. Also, if you love downloading freebies, checkup, moon freebie balls on my website, by going to Lindsaymaloney.com, selecting freebie vault. And there you can download all the things I will help you start and scale your coaching business. And if you're feeling extra generous, we'll be sure you hit that subscribe button. So you don't miss an episode!